Orrin Hatch: “over the past several weeks, the Senate has focused closely on international trade. We have debated trade adjustment…”

“over the past several weeks, the Senate has focused closely on international trade. We have debated trade adjustment assistance, a bill to penalize China's currency policies, and our pending free-trade agreements. These have been robust debates. It is an appropriate capstone that we will soon be approving our trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. The reality is, these agreements should have passed long ago. Although completed over 4 years ago, they were first blocked in the 111th Congress by a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. They were then delayed by our own President, who devised excuse after excuse for not acting to implement them. This spring, after the excuses related to the agreements themselves were addressed by our trading partners, the President made a new demand. This time it was trade adjustment assistance spending. The President made it clear that if this domestic spending program was not expanded and approved, he would abandon our allies in Colombia, Panama, and South Korea and cede these growing markets to our foreign competitors. It took Congress months to untie this substantive and procedural Gordian knot that President Obama and his administration created. Throughout this long period of delay, U.S. workers and exporters were denied the benefits of these agreements.…”